Minitor

A small, self-hosted Stremio addon for streaming torrents.

It searches via Jackett and either lets Stremio's own engine stream the torrent (like Torrentio), or downloads it locally with qBittorrent and serves it back.

Mostly a learning project — a hobbyist's peek at how debrid services (TorBox, Real-Debrid) and streaming addons work under the hood.

Stremio addon · Jackett / Torznab · qBittorrent · self-hosted · beta

macOS · Windows · Linux

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✨ What is it?

Debrid services like TorBox and Real-Debrid download torrents to their servers and stream them to you. Minitor is a tiny take on that same idea, running on your own machine. It won't match a real debrid service — there's no shared datacenter cache behind it — but it's enough to search and play torrents from within Stremio, and to learn how the pieces fit together.

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🔀 Two streaming modes

Set with STREAM_MODE (or the toggle in the desktop app):

Mode	What happens	Needs
direct (default)	Hands Stremio the torrent's infoHash — Stremio's own engine streams it. No local download. (Torrentio-style.)	Jackett
cache	Adds the torrent to qBittorrent, downloads it to disk, and range-streams the local file — a local copy you can keep, playable while it downloads.	Jackett + qBittorrent

The two modes use different addon ids, so you can install both in Stremio if you like.

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🚀 Quick start — the desktop app

   

_{also: Windows .msi · Linux .deb · .rpm · all releases
Buttons always grab the latest release. Intel Macs: run from source.}

The app is a small control panel that tries to handle the setup for you:

• Detects Jackett and qBittorrent, and installs the missing ones via your package manager — Homebrew (macOS), winget (Windows), apt/dnf/pacman (Linux). No package manager? It shows a Download button instead.
• Configures Jackett (finds its API key, adds a few popular indexers)
• Direct / Cache toggle + Start / Stop
• Shows the addon URL to paste into Stremio
• Stops the service when you quit

First launch. The app is unsigned (no paid signing cert), so your OS may warn on first open:

• macOS — drag Minitor → Applications, then double-click the bundled unquarantine.command, or run:

  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Minitor.app
  codesign --force --deep --sign - /Applications/Minitor.app

  (Or right-click the app → Open the first time.)
• Windows — SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC" → More info → Run anyway.
• Linux — make the AppImage executable: chmod +x Minitor_*.AppImage.

Cache mode only: enable qBittorrent's Web UI (Settings → Web UI, port 8080). Direct mode needs nothing extra.

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🛠️ Run from source (any OS)

1 · Install Jackett (+ qBittorrent for cache mode)

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install jackett && brew services start jackett   # → http://127.0.0.1:9117
brew install --cask qbittorrent                        # only for STREAM_MODE=cache

# Windows (winget)
winget install Jackett.Jackett
winget install qBittorrent.qBittorrent

# Linux (apt example)
sudo apt-get install jackett qbittorrent

In the Jackett UI (http://127.0.0.1:9117) add a few indexers + copy the API key (top-right). For qBittorrent, enable Settings → Web UI (port 8080).

2 · Configure .env

cp .env.example .env      # then edit

Var	Meaning
STREAM_MODE	direct (default) or cache
JACKETT_URL, JACKETT_API_KEY	your Jackett instance + key
QBIT_URL, QBIT_USER, QBIT_PASS	qBittorrent Web UI (cache mode)
DOWNLOAD_DIR	must match qBittorrent's save path (cache mode)
PUBLIC_URL	http://127.0.0.1:11472 — use your LAN IP for phone/TV

3 · Run

npm install
npm start          # or: npm run dev  (auto-restart)

4 · Install in Stremio

Stremio → Add-ons → paste into the search box → Install:

http://127.0.0.1:11472/manifest.json

Open any movie or series — Minitor searches Jackett by title (+ year) and lists ranked streams inline.

Build the desktop app yourself

Build on the OS you're targeting (Tauri can't cross-compile). Pick the matching sidecar script:

npm install
npm run build:sidecar:arm64        # macOS Apple Silicon  (also: :x64, :win, :linux)
cd desktop && npm install
npm run tauri build                # → src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

CI builds macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows and Linux automatically — push a v* tag (see .github/workflows/release.yml).

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🔬 How it works

   Stremio ──/manifest.json──▶ Minitor (addon)
           ──/stream/….json──▶ resolve IMDb id (Cinemeta) ──▶ search Jackett
                               rank streams: tier ▸ seeders ▸ language
                                       │
            direct ────────────────────┤  Stremio's own engine streams via infoHash
                                       │
           cache  ─── GET /play/… ─────┘  Minitor range-streams a local file (HTTP 206)
                                              │  qBittorrent downloads it
                                              ▼  file on disk (DOWNLOAD_DIR)

Project map

File / dir	Job
src/addon.js	manifest / catalog / meta / stream — the Stremio bridge
src/cinemeta.js	IMDb id → title / year
src/search.js	search, anchored title+year relevance, ranking, result cache
src/jackett.js	Jackett Torznab search
src/jackett-setup.js	discover API key + auto-add indexers
src/resolve-magnet.js	page-URL → magnet (apibay / HTML scrape) fallback
src/qbittorrent.js	qBittorrent Web API client (cache mode)
src/cache.js	local cache index + piece-aware status (cache mode)
src/stream.js	/play/:hash — local HTTP range/seek streaming (cache mode)
desktop/	Tauri macOS control panel (Rust core + webview UI)

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⚠️ Notes & limitations

It's still in beta, so expect rough edges:

• Search quality depends entirely on which indexers you add in Jackett.
• A single machine can't make the first play faster — it's gated by the same peers/seeders. Real debrid services are fast because their cache is shared across many users; Minitor has none of that.
• No transcoding — your player must support the codec/container (mkv/mp4 are usually fine).
• Please only use it for content you're legally allowed to download.

_{Built to learn how Stremio addons, BitTorrent streaming, and debrid services work.}